US conspiracy theorist rants against a woman conductor
NewsThe world according to conspiracy theorist Dinesh D’Souza, author of What’s So Great About America:
Someone should run up to the front and yank this self-serving conductor out of there. She’s ruining it! It’s not all about the conductor; it’s about the music. Let the music take center stage pic.twitter.com/BdTrggZxdA
— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) November 23, 2024
Dinesh d’Souza struck me as somewhat reasonable in the early 1990s – I quite enjoyed “Illiberal Education.” Not sure if he’s changed in the last 30 years or if I did. I suspect it’s the producer of “2000 mules” and convicted felon who did.
I’m pretty sure he won’t say that about Bernstein. Someone should run up to him and yank him out of here, period.
Agree. Ghastly evangelical with right wing views.
And left-wing views have given us:
i) Inability to define a woman with the imposition of Len in women’s sports
ii) Biden/Harris etc
iii) Hunter Biden’s laptop
iv) Intolerance of any view diverging from their own including violating free speech
v) Intimidation and physical violence towards those who hold those views
vi) Brazen antisemitism including violence towards Jews
vii) An ill-concealed loathing of the working class.
The list goes on.
…and you call yourselves caring and inclusive. Get your own house in order before criticising this man.
Medicare
Social Security
Civil Rights Act
Voting Rights Act
Fair Housing Act
Title IX
Americans with Disabilities Act
Affordable Care Act
Child Tax Credit (so much for the “ill-concealed loathing of the working class”)
And you’re more worried about a couple of kids playing high school soccer?
For Len, read ‘men’.
She is not Bernstein and will never be at the level of Bernstein.
And when the players do look at her it’s with WTF in their eyes.
And she scooped up F-X Roth’s gig with the Berlin Phil. Discuss.
I’d rather not.
I was merely referring to d’Souza’s remarks over her gestures and expressions.
No one is saying that if you knew how to read.
Maybe not explicitly, but some kind of equivalence was definitely implied.
Moronic tweet.
Moronic twitt.
Who cares what D’Souza thinks?
Well, it is really not necessary to make this kind of gestures to get an emotional performance from your players – female or male conductor or whatever – I find it distracting to even watch and as a musician I wouldn’t even look, just concentrate on the bench before me and my ears. Even Mäkelä is behind in comparison. What does she do in … let’s say in Tchaikovsky 6? Mahler 5? The miraculous Mandarin ? Scythian Suite??? She is quite at the limit already here … I would recommend Järvi instead (focused input – great output). There are some quite energetic conductors out there, but they have clarity too (the Petrenkos, Nézet f.e.).
Dinesh D’Souza has been a pariah since his 2014 sex scandal, made worse by his now pardoned delonious stretch in prison. He obviously does not understand music, nor does he understand the position of conductor, or he would not have made the comment. This is likely a poke at her gender and not her music making as well. In D’Souza’s whacky brain, the sexist teachings of the Catholic Church are always on his shoulder and there is no room for other thought. That said, he’s free to say what he likes, though most Americans dumped him a decade ago.
What a gloriously expressive performance. Whoever makes an orchestra play like that should be celebrated, not condemned.
No. Her gestures are ridiculous and unprofessional.
If they get the orchbestra to produce “a gloriously expressive performance,” does it matter that the gestures are “ridiculous and unprofessional”?
My issue with these lady maestras is they all try to act like a man and project man’s power and that often comes across as overreacting to the music and distracting to the viewer.
If they really want to imitate a male conductor – try Fritz Reiner.
Painting with rather too broad a brush, I’d say.
The gestures and expressions look rehearsed. Always smile complicity at the leader, too. He may have a point.
Professional music critics say much worse things and their targets often don’t deserve them
Is he claiming the performance is self-indulgent? Does he think it sounds bad? Would he even know? Is he branching into music criticism?
She’s clearly not at the Klemperer/Boult end of the podium technique spectrum, but her gestures don’t seem outlandish compared to those of many other (almost entirely male) conductors and, although her gestures are broad she’s not being histrionic, as Bernstein could be. Nonetheless, it’s not so mysterious why he has singled her out.
Holy Cow! Don’t let him see Carlos Kleiber conducting Tristan.
Apparently only a problem when women do it.
Why is this awful post newsworthy?
…because it shows the right wing’s stupidity and hatred of women.
Where does he mention her sex? Or is it forbidden to criticise women now? Pretty rich coming from the left, which doesn’t even know what a woman is.
Nothing to do with gender: there is a difference between bashing and informed criticism. I saw some of the latter in other comments here. No so in Souza’s post.
What proportion of “the left” “doesn’t even know what a woman is”? Absolutely all of it, without exception? 87%? 57%? 34%?
DYOR. It’s all out there.
her movements are obnoxious and unnecessary, but Dinesh isn’t qualified to comment on it. Also, any high level orchestra can play this particular snippet flawlessly without looking at the conductor and likely has ‘their way’ to play it deep rooted in tradition. so it’s not really possible to really judge her conducting on its own merits from this clip.
Norman, why give him and his acolytes any air ? I am reminded of a remark from the late, great Elaine Strich on “Just A Minute”: “I’d much rather see Barnum”.
In any event, wasn’t he pardoned by Trump for a 2014 conviction for violating campaign finance laws ?
I dont know if I would call him a conspiracy theorist but I might call him a putz.
His latest is Vindicating Trump, the book and the film.
Is it that Dinah someone?- forget her name- Finnish girl who managed to conduct the Last night of The Proms during Covid. Well- if so- its the best conducting I’ve seen from her- puts some real wellie into it! But look at Dohnanyi with The Orchestre de Paris in the same movement- gets more far more out of the orchestra with half the effort of dear Dinah
Her name is Dalia Stasevska. Born in Ukraine, she became a part of Finnish musical royalty when she married Jean Sibelius’ great-grandson. She conducted my orchestra a few times and made a fairly good impression. We should keep in mind that this video clip shows a part of a rehearsal – not of a performance. She certainly looks quite a bit over-demonstrative here, but the orchestra is playing well and we don’t know what she did and how the orchestra sounded before and after this particular moment of their rehearsing process. It may be that their playing improved and she did not need to be so over-emphatic during their performance. There are some very fine conductors who are much more visually expressive in rehearsals than during performances – there is nothing wrong with that if the musical results are good.
Dinesh, as a professional classical musician, you should stay in your lane and STFU.
I have to agree with him, actually. The conductor is obnoxiously distracting.
A lot of generic “energy” with no meaning. Pushing the tempo needlessly, stifling the sound. This opening movement should resemble the majestic ship of the pilgrims setting off on a transatlantic aventure, instead it sounds like a chihuahua running for a ball.
Well, the criticisms of someone who doesn’t know the “first movement” of this beloved old warhorse from its last movement are of minimal value. The disgraced Mr. D’Souza has a soulmate, it seems.
Yes, I realised my mistake straight after posting, to my embarrassment. However I’m not sure the last movement should sound like a yapping chihuahua either.
You need to change your headline to “US Conspiracy Theorist Rants Against A Conductor.” Not saying I agree with D’Souza, but there is no indication in his tweet that the conductor being a woman had anything to do with it.
Well this strikes me as a rehearsal and not a public performance. So as such, this is where such gestures may be appropriate. BTW, whatever the case, I rather liked the interpretation.
This is a real game of two halves. Firstly as a (largely retired) player I have to say that this encapsulates everything that has irritated me over the years. I don’t care one jot about her gender, just stand still for goodness sake! And leave those so expressive left hand gestures out. They’ve become almost epidemic over the years. Meaningless.
It has to be said also that players who sway and bounce excessively are equally irritating and this band seems full of them. Sit still and play the notes!
Lastly, for my third point who does this bloke think he is? He’s quite clearly a misogynistic fool making rash statements without the back up knowledge, for the sake of irritating people. Reading up a bit on him that seems to be what he’s best at.
Change the face with Dudamel’s with AI and you’d never know the difference-
Absolute nonsense – it is not even close.
I’m afraid Dinesh is right; it is overdone to the point of parody. The orchestra doesn’t need it and they aren’t looking at her for anything other than the most necessary of traffic signals. It’s actually quite ridiculous.
Generally like Dinesh and his opinions, but I have no idea why he would feel compelled to share this particular negative judgement.
If the conductor offends, just close your eyes and enjoy the music.
I agree about not watching conductors. We should judge them by listening. If, however, a conductor is no good, closing the eyes won’t help.
Compared to Klaus Mäkelä, this woman is comatose!
This is a rehearsal. Unless the french now play concerts in such casual clothing. who cares about her gestures in a rehearsal except the musicians? De Souza has no clue.
D’nesh doesn’t understand half notes. He’s commented on music in half notes but it was actually quarter notes. I asked if he understood what quarter notes were, and he said: staccato! Staccato! He doesn’t understand formal structure. I don’t think he’s performed professionally. Or if he has, everyone laughed at his inability to play at a 9th grade level. Another idiot who screams and screams and rarely shares music with anyone.
This is insanity. She’s quite good. What a moron, he should shut his mouth.
The performance and/or recording speaks for itself. If it sounds good then whatever she does, it’s effective.
Every time I get on Twitter I am reminded to get off Twitter
Well, he’s right, but just for the wrong reason. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
I bet the orchestra like her.
My first association was Sir George Solti conducting Siegfried’s funeral march with the VPO.
Nobody really complained about him back then. Well, there were no internet-based mass media back then that provided platforms for hate speech.
Solti would probably go viral on TikTok today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkOiKy6sXfM
D’Souza has a point: so many conductors over-emote and while it may look impressive to audiences, for players it’s really distracting…and even comical. What’s really annoying is that she’s doing this while reading the score: if you can’t do the finale of the New World without it, you haven’t done your homework. She should take a lead from Mei Ann Chen who is a model of restraint, clarity and precision – and turned in a terrifically exciting New World in Tucson…which, by the way, is just up the road from the town D’Souza was raised in: Patagonia.
Conductors who don’t have a clue what they’re doing notwithstanding, D’Souza is a moron of epic proportions and certainly has nothing to say of value about conducting or classical music.
Felon D’Souza wasn’t the only right-winger tweeting this video and disparaging her. It’s really weird what they notice and grasp onto (aside from underage women). If you pay attention to US politics, you know that the Trump playbook is now firmly and openly anti-woman (e.g., many “YOUR body, MY choice” comments abound), so that this is now fodder for Elon’s twitter shouldn’t be surprising.
D’Souza has as much right to express his opinions on music as everybody here has to comment on his work. Stop being hippocrates! By the way, it seems to me that it was Norman who went out of his way to emphasize the conductor’s gender, and that’s pretty cheap in my opinion.
And to paint D’Souza in a disparaging light as a “conspiracy theorist,” I might add. Has ANYONE here seen ANYTHING he has done? Or is this just harping on the same old tiresome liberal trope? There’s your conspiracy theory right there.
It seems that even hippocrates won’t cure this writer! A hippopottymusician if ever there was.
Allegations have been made and we need to find the alligator………
Sounds very good to.me. Not boring which many performances of this can be. Great tempi. Makela.dances and prances a lot more. The comment is ignorant amd ridiculous.
try truth teller
Well, that is some terrible conducting, and you can hear it in the terribly exaggerated playing.
Sane people need to stop using X as it turns increasingly toward the official social media platform of America’s incoming far right-wing government – they also need to stop believing posts made on X, particularly by the incoming president’s sycophants.
Far-right…here we go again…
It depends whether he is criticising her as a woman or as a conductor. If as a conductor, that is fair game – people criticised Bernstein for years for his gestures and Gould for his mannerisms at the piano.
He makes no mention of her being a woman, just a conductor.